Senior Geospatial Researcher III/IV

Job description

Posting Title Senior Geospatial Researcher III/IV . Location CO - Golden . Position Type Regular . Hours Per Week 40 . Working at NLR NLR is located at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Golden, Colorado is the nation's primary laboratory for energy systems research and development. Join the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), where world-class scientists, engineers, and experts are accelerating energy innovation through breakthrough research and systems integration. From our mission to our collaborative culture, NLR stands out in the research community for its commitment to an affordable and secure energy future. Spanning foundational science to applied systems engineering and analysis, we focus on solving complex challenges to deliver advanced, secure, reliable, and cost-effective energy solutions. Our work helps strengthen U.S. industries, support job creation, and promote national economic growth. At NLR, you'll find a mission-driven environment supported by state-of-the-art facilities, multidisciplinary research teams, and strong collaborations with industry, academia, and other national laboratories. We offer robust professional development opportunities, and a competitive benefits package designed to support your career and well-being. Job Description The Geospatial Data Science (GDS) Group in NLR’s Strategic Energy Analysis Center is seeking an experienced Geospatial Researcher to develop and advance a research portfolio in geospatial modeling and characterization of new electricity generation, impacts of large loads, and infrastructure requirements to meet the needs of the nation. The GDS Group conducts research at the intersection of energy deployment, big data science, and geospatial modeling and visualization. Our team of scientists develops and applies geospatial algorithms and methods to evaluate the resource, technical, and economic potential for energy technologies, including geothermal, hydropower, wind, solar, natural gas, storage, transmission, and large loads. Our scientists work with industry partners, academia, and the Department of Energy (DOE) to develop cutting-edge solutions to the nation’s greatest energy challenges. Together we put modeling results and actionable insights in the hands of policymakers, private sector stakeholders, and the broader public. Geospatial modeling at NLR enables detailed techno-economic assessment, capacity expansion and power systems modeling of electricity generation resources under a variety of regulatory, sociopolitical, and environmental factors from local to continental scales. This position will support the growing research portfolio of the GDS Group, creating new capabilities to analyze scenarios and design solutions for complex challenges in energy siting and deployment. The position will support DOE projects and clients external to the laboratory. The successful candidate will develop novel analytical solutions to advance the state-of-the-science in broad geographic scale representation of the spatial drivers of energy deployment and associated infrastructure requirements. This position requires a strong applied and theoretical background in spatiotemporal methods addressing a myriad of considerations including community acceptance, ecological impacts, topographic factors, regulatory frameworks, and topological relationships. Experience with complex systems analysis and scenario modeling frameworks is preferred. Duties will include: Developing innovative spatiotemporal methods in system performance and cost modeling, sensitivity analysis and site selection optimization to help clients, stakeholders, and other researchers understand and synthesize underlying opportunities and challenges for energy deployment. Ideating and evaluating novel research strategies and methods to uncover insights and inform sustainable energy solutions at various geographic and temporal scales. Integrating multiple data sources, models, and software tools with scientific and engineering workflows for data analysis and decision support. These workflows require distributed parallel computing, utilizing both cloud and on-premise high-performance computing (HPC) resources. Communicating research insights through journal publications and conference presentations; organizing and participating in stakeholder engagement workshops and seminars; and developing proposals for new research directions. Serving as principal investigator and technical lead on critical existing and emerging projects. Technical oversight and mentoring of junior staff to ensure the requisite depth and breadth of skillsets and capabilities needed to support a growing portfolio. The ideal candidate will bring a deep background and experience in project management, spatial methods development, and quantitative analysis, as well as extensive programming skills to integrate various models and tools to solve complex design problems of foundational and applied nature. Experience with Linux-based, scalable, open-source analysis tools is required. Expert proficiency in geospatial modeling is required, though experience with ESRI products is not a preferred skill, due to incompatibility with Linux-based resources and the highly customized solutions developed by the group. The candidate should be eager to work in an interdisciplinary field, together with computer scientists, policy analysts, and system engineers, and will require excellent interpersonal and communication skills. A Researcher IV candidate will demonstrate a high level and depth of project leadership experience, and/or serving as PI on multiple projects. A Researcher IV contributor will be capable of providing technical leadership, and managing the strategic vision and execution of research projects, beyond the Researcher III level or scope of performance. The NLR Geospatial Data Science group (https://www.nlr.gov/gis) is the pre-eminent geospatial team working on energy systems integration. Our cutting-edge research an